Economic Dimensions of Household Gift Giving

The purpose of this research was to explore economic dimensions of a consumer gift-giving model. Two dimensions of extrahousehold gift expenditures were modeled: the probability of giving and the expected value of the corresponding expenditures. Data were from 4, 139 households in the Quarterly Interview component of the 1984-1985 U.S. Continuing Consumer Expenditure Survey. The results demonstrated that both the probability of giving and the value of annual expenditures for gifts given outside the consumer unit are related to total expenditures (a proxy for income), family size, life-cycle stage, and education. In addition, the probability of gift giving is related to the number of female adults, ethnicity, and urbanization, and the value of gift expenditures is related to region. Extrahousehold gift expenditures appear to be a luxury-as income increases, gift expenditures increase more rapidly.